Virginia Heath - Redeeming The Reclusive Earl

‘Because—and I doubt this will come as a piece of mind-shattering news, Lord Rivenhall—I am a trifle odd.’

‘A little eccentric, perhaps...’

It was very decent of him to try to defend her and she found herself smiling at him and meaning it completely. ‘Eccentric is wearing breeches and digging holes in the ground, Lord Rivenhall. Odd is when you have a brain which retains every piece of information it happens to come across.’

‘Every piece?’ He wasn’t convinced, although to be fair to him, why should he be? Effie had never even read about another person like her. ‘It is impossible to remember everything Miss Nithercott.’

‘What proof would you like?’ It was probably for the best she get it over and done with. ‘Should I recite every monarch from Alfred the Great to King George? I could do it forward and backwards and give you the dates of their reigns. Or Ge Hong’s exact and original ingredients for gunpowder from fourth-century China? It’s sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre, in case you were wondering. Although rather interestingly, they tended to retrieve the saltpetre from decayed manure rather than mine it back in those days. I’ve always pondered how he discovered that. What exactly was Ge Hong doing with dung that made him wonder if it might explode? Unless it was a complete accident as so often scientific discovery is?’ His square jaw was hanging slack. ‘Which neatly leads me to the real crux of my oddness, in that my mind constantly asks questions or speculates and at such speed they often fly out of my mouth before I’ve given any thought at all as to whether or not it is appropriate to say them. Which inevitably means I either inadvertently offend people or terrify them. And as much as I don’t mean to alienate them, I completely understand why I do. It is hardly normal for a person to know all of the bizarre and convoluted things that I do.’

‘But not particularly unusual when the person’s father is a don at Cambridge who specialises in translating Anglo-Saxon texts.’ He had remembered and appeared charmingly smug that he did. ‘Hardly a surprise, then, that you have an extensive grasp of history, Miss Nithercott.’

‘ Was a don. He died four years ago.’

‘Oh...’ She could see that brought him up short. ‘I am sorry.’ He stared down at his feet awkwardly for a moment and she felt bad for directing their conversation on to a morbid path when she had been rather enjoying it.

‘I am afraid my oddity is not confined to just history. I remember everything. Test me. If I’ve read it, it’s in here.’ She tapped her forehead.

‘Shakespeare’s sonnet number one hundred and sixteen.’

‘ “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds...” I’ve always had a soft spot for that one.’ The single dark eyebrow she could clearly see raised, impressed. ‘Is it your favourite?’

‘It used to be. How many miles is it to cross the Channel?’

‘At its narrowest point, just twenty-one. But if one is travelling the normal route between Dover and Calais and in need of a harbour it’s twenty-eight. Although that is as the crow flies. If I were being pedantic, and because we can neither fly nor walk to France, it is technically twenty-four miles because we would need to use a boat of some sort to get there and a nautical mile is two hundred and sixty-five yards longer than the standard mile, therefore there are fewer of them.’

His head tilted again and he stared at her for the longest time before shaking his head. ‘That is quite a gift, Miss Not-at-all-usual.’

‘Or a curse. Depending on how you look at it.’ She felt her smile falter. ‘Sometimes just listening to my brain is exhausting.’ Heaven only knew why she felt compelled to admit that.

‘I know what you mean.’ His gaze locked and held with hers, making her wonder if he meant he empathised rather than sympathised. But whatever emotion it was he hastily covered it by looking down. Then seemed surprised to find the ancient bracelet still in his hand. ‘Why did you bring this to me?’

‘Because it came out of your land and is very valuable. It did not feel right taking your gold.’

‘My gold rather than the nation’s?’

‘I shan’t deny it is of the utmost national importance, my lord.’

‘Then you had best study it, Miss Nithercott.’ He held it out and dropped it into her open palm. ‘I should hate to wilfully stand in the way of progress.’ Then he smiled, properly smiled, for the very first time and it had the most unexpected effect on her. Her pulse quickened and her tummy felt all funny. Effie found herself smiling back and gazing, perhaps a little winsomely, into his now-twinkling deep brown eyes.

‘Excuse me, my lord...’ Smithson’s head poked around the door, his expression apologetic, as he used the rest of it as a shield. ‘There is a lady here to see you.’

‘No visitors, Smithson. None. We’ve been through this. Do not even let her in the front door!’

‘I didn’t, my lord, but...’ The old retainer’s eyes swivelled to Effie and back again. ‘She is also refusing to leave, my lord, and is currently still on the drive, supervising the unloading of her baggage.’

‘She brought baggage?’ Lord Rivenhall was practically snarling now, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

‘She is under the impression she has come to stay, my lord.’ Then, his expression turned pained. ‘And claims to be your sister.’

Eleanor being Eleanor, she immediately made herself at home and sent the butler for tea. Tea which she couldn’t help herself from inviting Miss Nithercott to join them in, knowing full well he would hardly tear her off a strip in front of a guest. Worse, the new bane of his life had a charming smudge of dried mud on her cheek which his fingers itched to brush away. Between that, her breeches and his blasted sister he was in utter hell and the tea hadn’t yet arrived.

‘You look well, Max. You’ve caught some sun.’

‘I’ve been riding.’

‘That’s marvellous! Fresh air does wonders for the soul and you were looking much too pasty.’ He watched her gaze wander briefly to the distracting woman sat beside her before knowingly fixing on him. ‘The parkland here is so lovely and unspoiled. I’ll bet its great fun to gallop across. Do you ride, Miss Nithercott?’ His sister gestured to the breeches which were tormenting him. ‘Were the pair of you riding this afternoon...or about to before I interrupted?’

He was going to strangle his older sibling. ‘She digs, Eleanor. Big holes in the ground near the ruins of the old Abbey.’

‘Really? Whatever for?’

‘Whatever I can find, Mrs Baxter. The area used to house a Roman settlement so all sorts of things are buried beneath the soil. Oil lamps, coins, pottery. Today I found this.’ The bracelet was retrieved from the satchel at her feet and handed to his over-curious, overbearing, meddling sister, who took her own sweet time examining it.

‘How fascinating. Is this Roman?’

‘Older, I believe. Possibly over two thousand years old—or more. And solid gold. Hence I brought it to Lord Rivenhall as it is technically his seeing as it came out of his land.’

‘Miss Nithercott is a historian.’

‘An antiquarian, actually. Historians tend to learn about the past from books, whereas antiquarians learn about it by excavating it from the ground.’ Miss Nithercott beamed at his sister. ‘Historians tend to look down on antiquarians because we get our hands dirty.’ She held them up for inspection apologetically and he watched his sister obviously focus on the lack of ring on her wedding finger. ‘Hence the breeches.’